Most cultures have a form of communication known as language. Most languages have a visual symbolic code to communicate in a visual manner. In America and many other countries today, English and Spanish are the primary languages used.
In English and Spanish, the written form of communication are letters in combination to visually depict the verbal code of language. Each letter has a specific sound or sounds and in combination these letters have been given meaning. The visual depiction of the word in English and Spanish is read from left to right. This is called reading the written word. A line of symbols are read from left to right and from the top to the bottom of the page.
The present invention relates to a portable viewing instrument to aid readers and/or the visually limited. Reading can be very difficult for many people, particularly for those who have limited vision and/or have a learning disability such as Dyslexia.
For many, the process of reading is an ordinary task. However, for many people, it is difficult to translate and read the language symbols (words) in a comprehensive manner. These people have a reading difficulty. Their eyes wander about the page of print, randomly moving up, down, right, left. They lose their place and their direction so that the focus of the reading process becomes blurred. For them, it is not a simple task to move their eyes from left to right, and from the top of the page to the bottom of the page, combining the symbols in a correct manner to make sense of the written print. Further, it is often difficult for these individuals to properly use phonetic skills to decode and blend a group of symbols into a meaningful word.
Problems may arise from the lack of repetitive experiences in the gross motor developmental area (i.e. leftright motor movement), which is necessary if further learning in the fine motor area is to take place (i.e. eye-hand coordination, left-right eye movement). Reading Readiness experiences are necessary in the gross and fine motor area for the student to master the proper learning of skills in reading.
Some common characteristics of the visually limited or reading disabled person include:
1--A need for boundaries and limitations.
2--A perceptual difficulty reflecting the inability to grasp gestalts, including a difficulty in integrating a form as a meaningful whole.
3--A difficulty in filtering out unimportant surrounding stimuli and in separating the form from the background.
4--A problem in separating a figure from the ground, such as an inability to perceive and meaningfully separate objects in the foreground and background.
5--A problem with directionality.
6--A difficulty in visual-motor coordination.
7--A difficulty in organizing space because they may be disorganized.
8--Distractability and being unable to attend.
9--Dyslexia, which is a lack of ability to read. Such persons are unable to learn what letters look like or what sounds go with the letters.
One of the primary difficulties for individuals with reading difficulties has been the task of structuring the viewing field to consistently isolate one line of print at a time, moving the eye smoothly from left to right. Another has been the task of isolating a single word and blending the correct sounds from left to right. Since most of the English language is phonetic, proper use of phonetic skills would of course simplify the reading process.
Individuals with reading difficulties have been faced with using their vision alone, with their fingers or a sheet of blank paper used to isolate a single word or a single line of print in the reading process. For many, this does not provide enough consistent structure to master the reading process.
Another tool or method of instruction has been the use of Flash Cards. These are individual small cards on which a word or group of words are written to be seen in isolation. The difficulty with this method is that not enough structure is provided and the placement of the word is too far removed from the context of other written words. Further, the reader must be in possession of many cards. Much preparation is necessary before study can begin.
Since gross motor movement is learned before fine motor movement, it is necessary that the correct pattern of eye-hand coordination be developed and incorporated in the learning process, in order to master the reading task. Thus far, there has not been a device which can consolidate the eye-hand coordination process that is required for reading.
When a person has a broken leg, a crutch is needed while the leg is getting stronger and healing. Similarly, when a person has a viewing problem, an academic crutch is required. A concrete, physical aid to learning is needed to positively motivate the student to learn.
In order for a positive emotional experience to develop for a learner during the learning process, it is essential that the crutch or device be used and not removed from the learner until he or she feels ready to attempt the process without the device. It is unwise to forcefully remove a crutch from a person who has a broken leg until the leg is fully healed. For if they fall again, before their leg is fully healed, the second break will be harder to mend. The same is true for the reading disabled. A second failure will be more damaging. The emotional trauma of failure may make the student stop the attempt to learn.
It is essential that the learner be allowed to use the aid until he or she is completely ready to continue the reading process without the aid of the device. A child who can walk will rarely choose to only crawl. When the child is ready to read or view without the device, he will do so. A person must be given the opportunity to practice the process independently with enough opportunity for repetition, until success occurs.